


Tricurious

by gala_apples



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Carjacking, F/M, First Kiss, Pre-Poly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 11:30:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10333703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: You can try to escape the consequences of Christmas, but fate will only make a bigger cosmic example out of you in the end.





	

The way Amanda sees it, the seventy two hours of Christmas Eve, Day and Boxing Day are a massive puzzle. Like if Rube Goldberg worked on a metaphorical level and decided he hated everyone. Or like Jigsaw from the Saw sextet, except with significantly less murder. Every ticking minute pushes forward a series of events with unforeseen consequences and nightmarish results. It might not be a hundred percent awful, but the bad easily outweighs the good during those three days. There’s a dread that comes with desperately wanting to not have a meltdown, and knowing that it’ll happen regardless. Add that to the standard holiday stresses of have nothing to show for her life to boast of to successful relatives, helping coordinate a twelve item menu, ‘are my gifts good enough’, and Mom’s last minute anxiety based cleaning and it’s enough to trigger an episode. Or seventeen.

In theory everyone understands and accepts the disorder. In practice there’s a difference between reading in the biannual family snail mail extravaganza -April and August to balance with the December physical meet up- that grandma’s had a rough spell and witnessing Amanda or Todd fall to the ground for the third time in a day. The idea that without her, Todd’s now the sole representative, again, is almost enough to make her want to rescue him. Maybe next year. This year is for facing his lies head on. It’s for everyone to be out of sympathy and expect him to be ‘over it’ while he experiences it for the first time. It’s only fair. Todd knows it too, or he’d be bugging her a lot more.

She really thought she was going to escape all the holiday drama this year. If she wasn’t already the crazy cousin, she will be when they find out she bailed on the nearly work week long celebration because she’s living in a van with a bunch of hoodlums. Amanda knows with near certainty that’s the descriptor that’s going to be passed around, and that’s without anyone have even seen a picture of her companions or living conditions.

Her parents know, and they are not impressed. Amanda half thought her excuse of ‘it reduces my bills’ would be accepted. Unfortunately Mom and Dad have too much struggling-to-appear-middle-class pride to let her get away with it. It’s true though. It’s not that the guys are helping her pay her bills, per se. They don’t really believe in consumerism, so sugardaddying isn’t how anything is going to go down. Not even in an anarchist Robin Hood steal from the upper class give to her way. It’s more that keeping away from the house means no bills. No water, no electricity, no cable, no internet, no phone. In any other situation meds would still be a necessity, roving renegades or not. Not now. They _have_ broken into a pharmacy for her, but they suck the negative energy away every time she has an attack. The bottle of pills she keeps is a security blanket more than anything else. The only real payment Amanda still has is her mortgage, and Todd owes her that in perpetuity for the massive breach of trust. He’ll be paying that the next thirty years, thanks.

The label of Crazy Cousin would have been a small price to pay, though, for the avoidance of watching things spiral downwards. Except, turns out Amanda hasn’t escaped anything. The stressors might be different -Martin isn’t expecting ham and turkey and duck, only her bi-products- but this time of year still sucks.

A shopping mall parking lot on Christmas Eve is actually a really good place to feast on fear, anxiety, and pain. Logical, if you think about it. It’s also a good place to nap, surprisingly. Amanda’s been getting better and better at conking out at opportunistic moments. Anywhere, anytime is sort of a necessity when sleeping beside four generally unwashed men. But swinging directly into her past observation of events with unforeseen consequences, turns out it’s _also_ a good place to steal cars to strip for parts.

When she wakes up someone has jacked the van. With her inside, what the fuck, did they not even scope it out? Or maybe the asshole knows she’s here, and just doesn’t consider her a threat. The rocking of the van must be what woke her up; they’re going about sixty mph down a commercial street a few blocks away from the mall. Amanda’s struck by half a dozen feelings at once. Fear- she’s never been in a carjacking before. Rage- she basically wants to gut this little punk. Confusion about said punk’s eye for appraisal makes the top five too. It's not like this is a sweet ride. It's rusty as fuck and it has writing all over it.

She’s not sure where the boys are. They needed to go off to destroy some shit and scare some people, and she likes the first a lot more than the second. She gets the necessity of it, she can’t have attacks on command to feed them. And if she could it would make things weird and brood-mareish to actually do so. So she gets why they need to go make some random stranger pee themselves, she just doesn’t want to join in. Two things she’s certain of though. One: they will find her, are probably even now sensing a problem the way they always do, like the smell before lightning crashes. Two: they will be pissed that someone stole their van, and eager to vent their frustrations. She just has to wait it out and not get killed in the meantime.

Amanda has confirmation that they’ve come to her rescue before she actually sees them, in the form of an audio clue. Sure shipping trucks honk their horns on occasion, their drivers are just as prone to road rage as anyone else. What long haul trucks don’t do, though, is blare the horn for a solid three minutes while forcing traffic to swerve around them. Eventually the truck forces the van to the shoulder. The carjacker is swearing up a storm, and that only gets more intense as all the doors open simultaneously. 

Ugh. fuck. She doesn’t want to be crying right now. Amanda hates crying. She knows cathartic crying exists, but she hates it and always has. When she was younger it was a misunderstanding-of-punk misogyny thing, she didn’t want to be a pussy. Now it’s a practical matter. She’s not sure if the Rowdy 3 enjoy freaked out relief tears, but based on what she’s seen so far, she has to imagine yes. Denying them the meal seems rude, but she really doesn’t want to share this.

She’s not sure why it comes as a surprise that Gripps is the one to approach, to hop into the back of the van, while Martin and the others lead the carjacker away for vengeance. Gripps is the empathetic one. Martin might be the one most capable of expressing it, his verbal skills aren’t half as deteriorated, but Gripps is the one who can demonstrate it. 

Right now he must know she wants to feel safe being vulnerable. It’s what drew her to live with them in the first place, after all. From a pocket Gripps pulls out two disposable packets of face cream. Amanda’s seen this display before, in CVS and the like. There’s usually fifteen differently decorated packs of the same gunk claiming to do different jobs, like tighten pores and shrink baggy circles. Amanda accepts the packet given to her, and tears open the marked edge. The cream oozes onto her fingers and it’s too late to go back, she’s now committed to spreading the exfoliating whatever-sauce on her face. Seeing Gripps begin to use the other packet on himself is enough to make her smile.

“Funny that we haven’t washed our clothes in two weeks but we’re face cleansing.”

Gripps shrugs.

Amanda pushes her hand into Gripps’. Their linked fingers are all gunky, but it doesn’t feel bad. In fact, it’s definitely right. Amanda doesn’t say anything and neither does Gripps. They just sit there, joined and breathing slowly, and _happy_ , until the door is thrown open and the van rocks with the weight of multiple men climbing inside. The group looks none the worse for having gone on the offensive. Not that Amanda’s surprised, considering they probably got lunch out of the deal.

Seeing their chalky white faces, Vogel starts giggling one of his shrieking monkey chortles. It’s not a pleasant sound, but it’s so him that Amanda’s come to enjoy hearing it. Now though, Amanda cuts it off. She leans forward and presses a kiss against his unsuspecting lips. She’s not afraid of getting eaten. She’s not. They might basically be vampires, but they’ve never actually touched those they’ve eaten from. It’s not like showing a vein near a pointed incisor.

Vogel laughs again when they part. This time it’s less wild and amused, more overly cocky to hide confusion. How does she know that? Observant little sister of a once teenage boy.

“Check that out.” Amanda’s surprised it’s Cross, not Martin, the talkative one of the bunch, speaking up.

Though of course, not to be outdone, Martin speaks next. A full sentence, even. “You gonna need some alone time there, little lady?”

For a moment the question hangs like a pendulum, swinging back and forth between every person in the van. Okay, so a five sided pendulum is not a thing. This is hardly the company in which she needs perfect eloquence, however. If she said it out loud, everyone would get it because it is a weighted thing everyone is having a turn reacting to. And Amanda doesn’t like it. She doesn’t want a kiss of one man fucking up her relationship with the others.

“Nope,” she finally answers, and does her best to kiss the crap out of Cross. First time she’s kissed someone with a moustache. A little irritating on her skin, but not the worst. He’s probably got the rawer end of the deal, getting covered in the drying flakes of mud mask.

Cross grins at her when they’re done. He swoops down to pick up a can of beer, takes a swig and makes an easy toss to her. Amanda manages to catch it and only spill a little on her wrist. She gulps enough to remind her that this is who she can be now, then narrows in on her last target.

Kissing Martin makes Amanda want to grab his hair. She’s never actually seen him put products in it, but it seems too gravity defying to be natural. The kiss is intense, fucking with her sense of space-time, and no she’s not quite sure how putting her hands on Martin will help, but she wants to. 

She might want to touch them all, actually. How the fuck about that? From doomed to be a spinster, eventual corpse eaten by a neighbour’s cat, to four ...somethings with potential in one bizarre swoop. Too bad it’s too late for this year. They’re not even in the right state. But who knows? Next year if things go well Amanda might bring a Rowdy 3 quartet of boys home for the family and significant other plus ones Christmas Eve meal. Then she’ll see who’s the crazy cousin and why.


End file.
